


A Strand in the Wind

by Wife_of_Bath



Category: 16th Century CE RPF
Genre: 5 Things, Alternate History, Don’t copy to another site, Family, Friendship, Gen, Italian Renaissance, Renaissance Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 09:17:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19170286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wife_of_Bath/pseuds/Wife_of_Bath
Summary: Five things that never happened to Raphael





	A Strand in the Wind

_Sculpture_

The goddess of love stands naked in the Duke’s garden. She is frozen, her hands hovering modestly over her body, her lips parted in surprise. Raffaello’s father brings him closer so he can truly see this prize of the Duke’s collection.

He reaches out, his fingers running along the smooth, cool stone of her arm. For a moment, he thinks the corners of the goddess’s mouth have turned upward in a smile. He wants to _make_ her smile.

“Can I do this? Can I be a sculptor?”

Disappoint briefly shadows his father’s face, but he nods. “If you want to be a sculptor, a sculptor you will be.”

 

_Mentor_

He sits alone in the church. His widowed stepmother left hours ago, sparing him a quick glance and instructions not to stay there all night. Why would she care if he did? Maybe the monks would take him in. Boys younger than he have been dropped off at monasteries. He could keep painting as a monk; lots of great artists were monks.

A tall man sits beside him on the floor. He appears to be in his early forties, handsome and dignified, with wavy blond hair. His dark eyes shine with intelligence.

“Hello young Sanzio. My name is Leonardo. I knew your father.”

Raffaello nods, heart jittering. His father had praised Leonardo often.

“I do not normally do this,” he says in a voice so soft Raffaello thinks he is talking to himself. “Come. I can teach you a little about painting and a few other things you may find interesting.” He stands and stretches out his hand. Raffaello stares dumbfounded, but he rises to his feet.

Signor Leonardo sighs. “I know something of losing a parent young.” He walks out of the church. Raffaello follows.

 

_Friendship_

“Your Madonnas are very…gentle.” Raffaello frowns. Michelangelo’s compliment is halting and hesitant, so unlike the sculptor’s brusque, blunt manner. But a compliment is a compliment, and Raffaello will accept it nonetheless.

“Your mother must be proud,” Michelangelo adds.

“I hope she would be.”

“What?”

“She died when I was eight.”

Michelangelo is silent for so long that Raffaello looks up from his sketch to make sure he has not disappeared without a word. Michelangelo stares back, an inscrutable expression on his face.

“I was six. You never said anything.”

“You never asked.” Michelangelo falls silent again. He stares at the cobblestones.

“I hope they would be proud of both of us,” he says. Their eyes meet, and for a moment, Raffaello begins to understand this solitary man with an inventive mind and violent temper. To his surprise, Michelangelo sits down beside him. They say nothing, but Raffaello spies a hint of a smile on Michelangelo’s face as his pen dances across the paper in short, frenzied strokes.

 

_Exile_

He stands by what he said. Michelangelo must be laughing at him. Years of arguments with Julius, yet he was never sent away. Raffaello speaks his mind once, and Leo, red with uncharacteristic rage, orders him out of his sight.

He dares not wait for an apology. Popes do not apologize.

With his greatest client gone, the commissions dry up. One by one, he sends his assistants to other masters.

“Come to Nüremburg,” Dürer writes after Raffaello tells him what happened. “There are others who share your mind on these matters.”

Nüremburg is not Rome. It is not Florence or Urbino. Yet it welcomes him with open arms, and Raffaello will make it his new home.

 

_Old Age_

Today is his birthday.

Giovanni sits on the floor, flipping through his old plans of a revitalized Rome. Raffaello had such great hopes then, so high-minded and idealistic. He had made progress too, until the invaders came. He was only forty-four then, not yet old, but the world was different after that. He withdrew, still accepting commissions from dukes and princes, but never undertaking anything like Rome again. That had been a dream. He gladly let Michelangelo have it.

The portrait of his lady wife, dead during the birth of their third child, hangs on the wall opposite his chair. Its companion, his wife in the guise of Venus, remains hidden in their bedroom. She smiles gently at him, and her dark eyes are beckoning.

He sketches his grandson, although his hand is shakier and his eyesight is not what it was. Perhaps he will turn this into a study of the child Christ or John the Baptist, or even just a portrait. His mother would like that.

Later, he takes a long walk in the hills. The world may have changed, but this, the countryside of his childhood, endures. Raffaello sits in the grass and watches the day fade into sunset.

**Author's Note:**

> There was a debate during the Renaissance about which was the higher art form, painting or sculpture. We have no idea what Giovanni Santi was like as a father, but I like to think he'd be a supportive dad. It's an interesting coincidence that Raphael and Michelangelo both lost their mothers at a young age, but women's mortality rates weren't great during the Renaissance. Raphael had a reputation for being extremely courteous and friendly, but some of the anecdotes about him show he had a sarcastic side. Although most of their correspondence is lost, Raphael and Albrecht Dürer seem to, at the very least, have had a strong professional admiration for each other. A lot of historians consider the Sack of Rome in 1527 to mark the end of the Renaissance. If he had lived, who knows how Raphael would have dealt with the event.


End file.
